


Mercurial Highs

by printed_clouds



Category: Folklore Love Triangle - Fandom, Taylor Swift (Musician), You Belong With Me - Taylor Swift (Song), august - Taylor Swift (Song), betty - Taylor Swift (Song), cardigan - Taylor Swift (Song)
Genre: Angst, F/F, F/M, Love Triangles
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-21
Updated: 2020-12-21
Packaged: 2021-03-10 17:01:58
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,159
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28210590
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/printed_clouds/pseuds/printed_clouds
Summary: My interpretation of the Folklore love triangle :)
Relationships: Inez/James, august/james, betty/august, betty/james
Comments: 2
Kudos: 2





	Mercurial Highs

Chapter 1 - Something About It Felt Like Home

Betty’s POV

“Do you guys feel nostalgic?” I ask, looking to the right towards James. He looks to me and smiles, the skin around his eyes crinkling.  
“Nostalgic?” he asks, taking my hand.  
“Yeah, you know, it’s spring and it’s not getting dark but it’s late afternoon and the sun isn’t shining as bright as it would have a few hours ago,” I reply.  
“I mean, I wouldn’t say it makes me nostalgic, it’s nice though,” he says, swinging our hands a little. I look down at our intertwined fingers, then look past James’ head at August who’s walking on the other side of him. She’s looking at her feet, but I guess she realizes I’m staring at her because she makes eye contact with me.  
“What’s going on?” August asks.  
“Not much, we were just talking about how I’m feeling sort of nostalgic. Late afternoons in late spring, you know? It reminds me of freshman year I guess,” I say. “James doesn’t get it, what a weirdo, moving here in the middle of sophomore year.” He and I giggle a little, and August smiles over in my direction. She winks at me, literally winks at me. I smile back with my eyebrows furrowed, looking confused, but I’m assuming that her wink is referring to everything that happened freshman year and the summer after. We’re not as close as we were, things are sometimes a little awkward, but our friend group of me, August, James, and sometimes Inez (she’s one of those people that hangs out with everyone and is busy most of the time) has stayed pretty strong.  
“Yeah, I get what you mean,” August says, as if I didn’t already know.  
“Guys, I’m so excited for summer,” I say, looking to both of them.  
“Me too,” James says, smiling at me again.  
“What the fuck y’all, we’re going to be seniors in the fall,” August says.  
“Oh my gosh August, I’m glad you can count,” James says sarcastically, she laughs loudly while I giggle a little.  
I raise my eyebrows a little and turn towards them. “Ugh James, don’t be like that,” I say smiling at him. “She makes a good point.”  
“Thanks Betty,” August says as I drop James’ hand and take hers.  
“Wow, you’re leaving me?” James asks, rolling his eyes and smiling. He’s always smiling. I sometimes don’t get how a person can be so happy all the time. I guess that’s August’s cynicism rubbing off on me.  
“Yup, we’re soulmates,” she says, and pulls my hand as she starts running.  
“Oh my gosh August, what are you doing?” I say laughing.  
“What do you mean? We’re eloping, right? Come on Betty, I thought we were on the same page,” she replies. We stop running, and she takes her hand out of mine, putting her arm around my shoulders. We walk as James catches up, running between us, wrapping his arm around August’s shoulder and replacing the arm August has around my shoulder with his own.  
We walk and talk for awhile longer, getting to August’s house first. We stop in front of her house.  
“It’s been nice hanging out with you guys lately,” I say to August and James. “Not to be too sappy, but I’ve never had friends that I’m this close to. It’s nice, but sometimes seems too good to be true, I guess. Hopefully the universe will give all this a little more time before it decides to balance it out with some sort of bad thing. I’ll take it for now though,” I say, smiling. I guess I smile a lot too.  
James and I wave at August as she unlocks her door and walks in. Her parents both work at night a lot, so she’ll probably end up calling us later, slightly lonely and trying to do science homework.  
James turns to me and takes my hand once again, as we start to walk. My house is the next stop, but we have a few minutes until we get there.  
“Hey guess what, apparently August and that dude Jeffrey from history are hanging out,” James says.  
“Oooh gossip. Like hanging out, wink wink?” I say.  
He laughs. “Wow, and I’m the weirdo, huh. But yeah, I guess that’s one way to put it.”  
“She’s my best friend and I love her, but she’s not exactly a saint. I mean, at least she’s not some sort of actress. She owns up to it, we probably don’t even need to talk about it behind her back,” I say.  
“Wow Betty, such a poetic way to talk about our friend’s dating life,” James says, laughing.  
“I mean, I’m not judging her, I’m judging all these guys who she deserves better than,” I say. “ I mean she’s smart and pretty and funny and all of those adjectives that mean good. I should know, considering ninth grade-” I stop talking. I’ve never been the type of person to talk without realizing.  
“What do you mean?” he asks.  
I’m also not much of an impulsive person, but I guess now is as good a time as any to tell him. I’m making it bigger in my head, right? Maybe I can tell James at least a little nonchalantly.  
“James, we sort of, um, dated? I guess? In ninth grade. I don’t know, it didn’t last too long and it was more to try things out I guess. Fun fact, I’m bi, though,” I say, and look straight ahead.  
“Oh, alright,” he says. “I mean, that’s cool and all that. I guess that makes the whole eloping joke make more sense. Should I be jealous?” James asks, half joking.  
“Of course not. I mean, should I be jealous of you guys? Maybe one day she’ll try to get together with you, you and her hang out a lot,” I say.  
“No!” he exclaims.  
I start laughing. “See, nothing to worry about.” I smile at him as we reach my house. “Bye James!” I say, walking into my house. My parents aren’t home yet, but it’s still a little too early for them to be. I walk up the stairs to my room, still feeling some adrenaline from coming out to James. I wasn’t expecting to do that today. I don’t really know when I was expecting to, though. I wasn’t trying to hide it, and I wasn’t worried that he’d be homophobic or something, but I guess there had to be some reason for me to not tell him sooner. Maybe I’ll figure it out some other time.  
I text August, saying heads up, I just told James. I’m assuming that she’ll know what I’m talking about, even though we haven’t talked about it in forever. I lay down on my bed and smile, watching TV on my phone, planning to do homework later. Today has been good. A weird good, though, as cliche as that sounds.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading!!!! This is my first fanfic that I’ve written (I’ve read many though), so any sort of advice is definitely appreciated :) Does this story feel like it’s moving too fast/like the scene hasn’t been set enough? I also decided to make this chapter pretty perfect and happy because things are about to get intense lol. I’ve wanted to write my take on the Folklore love triangle for a while, and I’ve been listening to Folklore a lot lately and have gotten a lot of inspiration to write this, so I figured why not. I decided to make James a boy for this story and have August and Betty have a relationship as well as James and Betty, but maybe I’ll write something more short and angsty (although I’m planning on making this story pretty angsty lol) about this love triangle another time because normally I hate love triangles but I like this one :) so yeah! Have a great day and I hope you’ll read the next chapter!!!


End file.
